[Zope-CMF] Versioned Documents (was: Workflow first cut is ready)

[Loren Stafford]

I forgot to mention that DCMI (Dublin Core) obliquely addresses Versioned
Documents with Relation:Replaces and Relation:Is Replaced By (see
http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmes-qualifiers/#relation), yielding the
kind of versioning we are accustomed to see with Internet RFCs. With some
formalization, "Relation" may be one avenue of implementation for Versioned
Documents in CMF.

-- Loren

> -----Original Message-----
> From: zope-cmf-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-cmf-admin@zope.org]On Behalf
> Of Loren Stafford
> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 16:40
> To: Shane Hathaway; zope-cmf@zope.org
> Subject: [Zope-CMF] Versioned Documents (was: Workflow first cut is
> ready)
>
>
> >
> > > As for what the Version component would be, I'm not sure.  It could be
> > > a VersionTool which acts as a registry / repository of versioned
> > > components (e.g. "portal_version.createNewVersion(this())",
> > > "portal_version.listVersions()", etc), but that sounds like a
> potential
> > > performance bottleneck to me.  Still, it *would* be useful, for other
> > > stuff too, like audit trails for documents in an extranet, etc.
> >
> > Do you see this as distinct from Zope Versions?
>
> Yes.
>
> I've been thinking about a Versioned Document capability a lot recently as
> I've been trying to understand how to use CMS as a Document Management
> system. Most of the pieces of Document Management are there
> (especially now
> with customizable workflow). One missing piece is Versioned Documents.
>
> Versioned Documents differ from Zope Versions in several respects.
>
> 1. Versions older than the current version must continue exist until they
> are explicitly deleted. You don't want a Pack operation to clean them out
> inadvertently.
>
> 2. Older versions may need special treatment in the catalog. You may not
> want them cluttering the catalog; you may or may not want them retrievable
> via a catalog search.
>
> 3. Older versions must be retrievable. For example, we sometimes need to
> send older manual versions to customers who are using older
> versions of our
> products.
>
> 4. It may be desirable to put a slight barrier in front of older versions,
> so that an older version is not retrieve accidently in place of a newer
> version. Or in other words, by default you always get the most current
> document, but you can get an older one with some additional effort (or
> syntax).
>
> 5. In some respects, all versions should be accessible by the same ID. For
> example, when a new version of a document is published, users
> should get the
> newest version when following the URL that they stored for an
> older version.
> In other respects, each version must be separately identifiable; for
> example, in a workflow various versions of a document may exist
> simultaneously with different workflow status.
>
> I hope others will chime in if I missed any essential points.
>
> -- Loren
>
>
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